One of the most popular features of the site is the Rank Statistics. As mentioned briefly in the previous blog post, there are some things I myself cannot change about it and would require assistance from Altro himself.

Having contacted Altro, for reasons I won't be discussing here, it's not possible for Altro to continue updating the site for at least the foreseeable future. As a result, most fringe pages will be completely updated with more information regarding new types of OCs and crews coming in the next couple of weeks.

The main point of this blog post is for those wanting to use the Rank Statistics feature. The main thing to note is it's still operational. However, those issues I cannot fix will have to remain that way. So, if you wish to use it, please ignore the numbers in brackets. They should display how many rank stats are in the database for each rank. However, they do not truly reflect this, and the only correct information displayed with regards to this is the total number of submitted stats, located at the top left of the page.

Secondly, when submitting (and this is probably most painful), because the Home/News page has altered, giving information such as casino stats, our existing submission form from the previous less detailed stats page remains. This means, when you submit your stats, a lot of error messages such as invalid input data will occur.In order to get your stats through to us so we can confirm them, you must take a step back, and when these errors occur, alter the data to fit our submission form. Having tested submitting new stats at length, here is a brief guide for what you'll need to edit, going through entry boxes one by one:

The first 2 boxes from successful and failed crimes don't need editing. However, the 3rd box is just expecting the total crimes, not the profit as well, so just delete the profit that is listed in the 3rd box. The next 3 boxes are correct, as is the Booze bought box. The next box for booze sold just needs the number of booze crates sold and a % in terms of total booze in brackets as well. The % doesn't need to be correct is irrelevant and will not display on the rank stats page but a % is required for valid submission, so for example, make sure the box has '1 (5%)', or something similar. The next box for Forum posts is fine, but the forum replies one will need you to find your replies number because it no longer displays anything in that box by default. The Arrested (Total) box again requires you to delete everything but the first number that displays there. Similarly the jail time box requires you to delete everything but the jail time that appears at the start. The successful and failed busts boxes require you to just delete the %s in brackets and the busts total requires you to delete everything except the first number that appears there. The Kills success and failure boxes are correct but the Kills total box again requires you to delete everything but the first number that appears. The same can be said for the OC boxes (success and failure are fine, the total only needs the first number shown in the box). The last four boxes are fine for travelling and online times.

This is a template for what is requires to make the new stats fit into the old entry submission, so either follow this, or after initally submitting stats, just go through them and sort any errors you see for yourself out. I realise this is a lot of work but as I say, the submission form will not be changed for the foreseeable future so this is the only way to submit statistics correctly. The stats that will show up will be enough to help determine when others are likely to rank.

One last issue with submissions is the Round number. As default, each set of stats that is submitted shows as Round 7. This cannot be changed so it is worth highlighting these Stats are for Round 8 in the additional comments section when submitting.

Having been through all this, I don't expect many if any to submit stats but will be pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong. Finally, around 95% of the site will be updated completely, there are just a few areas such as this one which cannot be changed, it is unfortunate but there's nothing we can do. Hopefully this site will still prove useful to you in some form. This blog will continue to be updated as and when new information is added.

As Round 8 is well and truly underway, I thought it may be nice to comb through the site, updating as is needed. Efforts will be made to contact Altro to assist in any areas that any Admins here cannot control. Pages that will be updated include (not in order of update):

As you can see, there's a lot of work that needs doing to the site and hasn't been used actively in a number of years now, but the aim is to get it back to as fully operational and, most importantly, helpful as possible.

This blog will be updated as much as possible with progress, although hopefully it will become visible. There may be additional pages added as a result to changes of features in the game for Round 8.

Sorry for my absent's on this blog. It is not because I am too busy, or because I have nothing interesting to write about, or because I am forgetting about this website now I am HDO. It's mainly because the buzz gave me a slightly different platform to release my anger against. To be fair that is what the majority of personal blogs are for. However I will try an expand this section with new writers, but given that the buzz struggles to find people I doubt I will be too successful.

Well to the article, my MSN has been buzzing for the past few days with questions about what it is like to be a HDO, and given that I am not a week in I guess I should have a firm graps of most of it. The majority of the people who I have been talking to want screenshots. Well you ain't getting any. Or want to know what special features we get, we don't get any. In fact the whole system for HDO's is pretty much guessable. We have a different Help Desk page for answering tickets (of course). Forum controls on the game, classifieds and off topic forums like a crew boss has but with mutes (guessable). Oh and the HRF (which a lot of the public know about already).

The work load? Well I answer a few tickets a day, my speed at the moment is fairly slow so the other HDO's answer the bulk. I still have to think about my reply carefully, where as they can play it on automatic after a years experience. Monitoring the forums as well isn't that big of a deal, for one, the harassment rules changed at the start of round 6 (you may remember). For the most part we let users get on with it.

Really it's not that much work. What had the HDO's flapping in the forums was the hacking links, even that was more just a keep an eye out exercise till a moderator could come to clear up the mess. You know those reaction games at arcades? The ones where you have to hit the button when you saw the alien? Well it was a lot like that, hit the red X when you see is.gd/[extension here] link. Even then my colleges and superiors were faster off the mark in many cases.

Honestly never think I am too busy to help you in BM, or code something for the website because I am a HDO. It's now more likely that I have more time while I wait on BL for something to do.

With the proposed plan to changed to #4a4a4a Altrozero.co.uk/boot members may be glad to know we are now 100% fully converted over to this new style. Meaning that, all bbcodes have been changed, images and other aspects.

If you do happen to come across something we have missed please contact us via the contact form at the bottom of the menu! Thank you.

You may or may not remember the olden days, of round 4. For months we heard nothing from our 'masters' as the game slipped from graces, duping became the norm, and one or two frantic moderators ran around doing what they could to hold the game together. This resulted in players like myself leaving bootleggers for a while, setting up our own games and exploring for ourselves. At this point our primitive coding skills were shockingly bad (I was young). Alas they were to the same level as the boot coders who struggled with profile hacks and data validation.

A few months later however things changed. BSF2000 posted an apology on the new page asking for forgiveness, which players were all to glad to grant given the bug fixes and feature updates that followed. Crews were updated, profiles fixed and shortly after a reset ending the huge amount of duping which suddenly became under control. While I do not pretend we are in any same state as we were then I do feel a sense on abandonment. Major crimes have gone unfixed (possible unchecked) for months, while small OC bugs doing the same. If like me you may also feel the game is slowly slipping from the 'innovative' style it once had to the out-dated style many now regard it as.

The point of this post? I don't know, I just feel something should be done. While the players are in no position to do anything it's about time we had word from the administration on what is happening at the moment?

Bye Bye VooDooDoll, you were one of the moderators who I feel made the game better and worked hard! You will be missed!

I do not think I will get it for several reasons (1) I was banned in round 4, (2) I don't really talk on the forums.

However I would like to urge players to do it. Now you may feel working for the 'machine' is not you, you would rather bitch, complain and moan till features are fixed but the best way to change things is from the inside. If you don't like the way things are done do something about it and this is your best chance, you may or may not get the position but at least you can moan in comfort knowing you tried!

Now it's not that I don't like the way things are done but I would like to see some changes in the game and that is why I put my name forward. As I don't think I will get in I urge more active players and morally proper users than me to do so!

Love them, hate them or simple don't believe they exist, The Syndicate (TS) demonstrated what several months underground and a band of crew members can do when they work together in what looks like a perfect lesson in how to wipe a crew.

For those of you who do not know what has befallen BL, TS unleashed 5+ shooters to attack both TO (The Order) and EH (Event Horizon) simultaneously. Why might you ask was it the perfect wipe? Well they managed to take out 90 members dropping both crews before losing a single shooter. A pretty impressive attack considering the shoot out delays crew falls giving them time to respond. TS were successful because immediately after the shoot out ended they jumped back in killing with only a few seconds gap between shout outs. Unless crew shooters were timing it perfectly they would have almost no chance of hitting the targets. TS have never been one for verbose explanations for why they attack and I'm afraid I can shed no extra light on the matter but that's not what this article is about.

Now I should point out that both TO and EH are experienced crews, both have been through worse and come out better and this is testified in the fact they have been on the statistics is 3+ rounds each. They know what to do and do it well! Which just goes to show the strength of this attack, and while both crews will be back with the help of underground members this gorilla style of hit and run by underground crews like TS can lead to devastating outcomes in undefended-able conditions.

I'm sure this weeks buzz will give all the details, opinions and what next, but I just wanted to take a second (all friendships aside) and marvel at a perfect take down. 5 shooters working together to devastating ends! A lesson in perfection!

Given that 10 minutes ago I was 10 minutes away from quitting the game I find it slightly odd that I am finding time to write this article. Slightly odd that I can even be bothered, I really should just walk away now! Alas I have way to many friends on this game to give up on it, maybe I remember the glory days.

However the current feeling in bootleggers is sour (not just myself). Complaints everyday of the feeling of staff abandonment and lack of connection with the players seems to be all I hear about when I get dragged in to MSN convo's by BL players.

Why? Well ironically it's the updates! Now don't get me wrong I love the new Roulette tables! A whole new era of bootleggers (see my last article). However the fact that the NaN bug took so long to fix because of this feature, it's lack of an almost critical feature (owners wealth). More importantly the new kill rule, as some pretty amazing academic coders once told me "Exploits are the coders fault not the exploiter"! "If a feature can be used for extra 'activities' then the you've done something wrong!"

In the end I think it boils down to this! When the Admin are busy releasing new features to stop and take 10 minutes to fix a problem such as NaN which took me 3 minutes to solve and 2 minutes to submit to the helpdesk, when features are released with out being completed and the critcal "update" takes over a week (still counting) to release, and game balancing is thrown out the window with things like crimes and the kill system. It doesn't take idle half assed player such as myself to noticed something is really wrong.

Given that for the majority of the week including now there have been no mods, admin or HDO's on while I've been playing I can sort of see why people get annoyed at the game. Last HDO we had was Sean who has been very active and helpful, but since the last mod promotions we have lost 1 admin, 2 moderators and a HDO which have never been replaced. No fresh blood has entered the EG in over a year, is it hard to see why they find it hard to see a players view? Or are to busy?

The mods and HDO's we have do a great job... I just feel like we are losing the battle against either the Admin or we don't have enough of them...

Any but me remember that appology we got from BSF2000 in round 4? Or did I just dream that?

Are you one of those that never gets to hold a casino? Never manages to win it? Never manages to gain enough points to buy one? Yet you really want to know what your missing in the game of bootleggers? Well I managed to get my hands on a table tonight and snap a few screenshots for those of you who want a look at the new control panel. So what is all of the fuss about?

Well quite frankly an amazing new feature that makes owning a casino a lot more technical. Take a look at the new control panel...

Sexy eh? Being able to track current players, how they are doing, being able to tell if you are being hammered by one or many is a very handy tool.

Of course the feature needs a little tweaking. For one we at the moment cannot know the current casino wealth so can't tell when we are close to busting it (BSF2000 said this should/might change in the next update!) You also at the moment can not reset the image to blank (bottom corner of the casino). If the previous owner has an image you don't like you must replace it, you cannot remove it. The final quibble is while you can alter the cosmetics of the casino (e.g color and image) you cannot preview it. Hence you can not tell if the changes are for the better or worse! Is the purple a light/dark/bluish/redish color? Unless you have seen it in use before you just do not know!

All in all I think it's a huge step forward for the game. A feature justifiably neat and sharp for the times we are in! Good work and thanks BSF/5liter/mods!

While I hate to complain about the hard work of the staff of bootleggers I feel that the game is getting blow after blow after blow. This new crime system just being the newest one in a series of player targeted mistakes in the game.

First off this fix has exposed a few new bugs, the major crimes seem bugged to hell (error messages, $0 from crimes etc.) That I do not think is the issue, I also do not think that the reduced payouts are much of a blow either. I think that was a nice trade off, however I do have a few issues with the new system.

The fact that the top crime can get to around 100% and floats between 98%-100% instead of last round where it max out at mid 80% means that higher ranks avoid jail a lot more. This could lead to empty jails.

The second issue is major crimes, with all maxed out at 75% State and Nation dons will have a huge problem. Last round becoming state don was less profitable than being L.Don/R.Don/Don or even as low as GF. Now this will be amplified! This will be the same for casino owners (cost for casinos will drop even more than they are at the moment which is at an all time low).

Thirdly those who have worked hard and could have maxed out crimes with 10k but those which have 15k-20k have been screwed over. Instead of doing top crimes and being able to do the top crime and hence get the best experience they no longer have an advantage. Where I believe 20k should be the top it now appears to be less than 10k to max it out.

Fourthly me a don with just 10k crimes is now making less money than I was before. While I don't mind so much about this, the new crime system that was meant to benefit players who invested time have just had their advantage stripped away. We are now making less money than we were at the end of the last reset with just 100 crimes at the rank of don.

This seems to be to us a worse solution to the previous problem... oh well I guess time will tell if the "fix" will give a better result for game play. Guess I will never be happy. Just a huge swing in the game with out a reset!